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SixApart, maker of the now open-source Movable Type software behind this blog, is launching a Journalist Bailout Program, offering no-longer-employed journalists free TypePad Pro blogs, ad revenue, promotion and assistance.

News organizations have bought out or laid off more than 10,000 people in the last six months, and here's a way some of those with upended lives can make something new of themselves.

SixApart gets to share some of the revenue, and beefs up TypePad's cred, but this seems mainly a thoughtful -- and oddly moving -- gesture on behalf of those who've spent years/decades making your local newspapers. In the trenches, we're mostly hard-boiled idealists who think of our work as a public service, not a business. And those tossed overboard remain largely at sea, and bad at sales.

Anil Dash, whose blog I read even before he became a vice president and chief evangelist at SixApart, explains the idea behind the idea (TypePad and Journalism):

...What I hadn't fully expected was how gripping the stories from individual journalists have been. The mood of the emails we've gotten has ranged from hopeful to heartbreaking, from cynical to sincere. Overall, there's an optimism which indicates that having a starting point to do something proactive and positive will be a great first step for many journalists to take control of their careers in an industry that is going through enormous upheaval.

I know that journalists are a skeptical bunch, so I'm not trying to bull**** anyone: The TypePad Journalist Bailout Program is not a silver bullet. It's not going to singlehandedly preserve the career and income of every working journalist who has a job today. And frankly, the response has been so overwhelming that we won't be able to accept every application at first.

But what we can do is give journalists the tools to take control of their own presence online. This program will let a lot of the most eager writers and reporters learn the ropes about how to be more effective and successful on the web...

(TypePad is very similar to Movable Type, but it's hosted by SixApart, for the many bloggers with no access to or interest in the server side. To blog, you browse to a link and log in.)

Here's how it works:

What's the deal?

Here's the thing: Your Tumblr, while clever, will not pay your bills. We want to fix that. So we've made the TypePad Journalist Bailout Program. While we can't promise it's going to replace having a full-time writing gig, it gets you up and running with your own site that you can start to benefit from. Let's outline the details, in true Digg-baiting listicle format:

* You get a free TypePad Pro blog account. That's the real deal, the same service that powers big-name media blogs, and it even includes professional support so we answer any questions you have.
* You get enrolled in the Six Apart Media advertising program. These are real display ads, that pay a lot more than simple Google text ads, and you get to keep the revenue.
* We'll promote your new site on Blogs.com. It's a fast-growing directory of the best in blogs, and Blogs.com will be a very effective way for all of your peers in the Journalist Bailout Program to cross-promote and share traffic for your independent sites.
* Lots more. Getting started with Six Apart opens the door to lots more ways to succeed in the future. We can introduce you to our VIP program to help drive traffic to your site, help you connect your blog to your LinkedIn profile, make it easy to manage your site's comments from an iPhone, and even show you how to automatically promote your posts to your Facebook friends.

The TypePad Journalist Bailout Program is FREE. But unlike the Fed's financial bailout, this program will actually end soon. Just send us the link to your last piece for a newspaper, magazine or broadcast journalism venue to bailout@sixapart.com, and we'll take care of the rest.

There is a zinger at the end: "Best of all, the first result for a Google search on your name will be an active, engaging blog, instead of a neglected LinkedIn page or a placeholder 'coming soon' site or your old articles from a publisher that doesn't even pay you anymore."

Clusters of former journalists might, ironically, form the core of new news organizations unfettered by multimillion-dollar presses and buildings, executive salaries and Wall Street's insistence that your primary product be ever-increasing revenue for shareholders.

The newest citizen journalists could be the old pros.

They will, however, need some good lawyers.

Way to go, SixApart.

 Tags  blogs new media

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